Singing from the soul

WASILLA — With the release of her fourth album, homegrown singer Adele Morgan paid homage to the land she so loves.

The 11th and final track of “This One Life” released earlier this month features Morgan singing the Alaska Flag Song.

“I’ve been asked to sing it so many times at so many places, but I never found an arraignment I really liked. So I decided to record my own,” Morgan said.

From her story, its clear Alaska has a strong place in the singer’s heart.

Despite stints away from the state and lucrative offers to stay Outside, she has always returned to where her family settled more then 70 years ago.

Her grandfather moved to Alaska in 1934 as a missionary for the mining camps and tent towns, and her father was a pilot and priest working in villages throughout the state. Morgan’s first memories are in Grayling, the Iditarod stop along the Yukon River.

“I actually talked in a very thick Athabascan accent,” Morgan said. “When we moved to Tacoma, Washington, my second-grade teacher asked me what country I was from.”

Her family soon moved back to Big Lake, and she remained throughout high school. She went to college in Portland, Ore., only to return to marry her childhood sweetheart. She became a mother and coached the Wasilla High School volleyball team to the state title, but her singing was limited to the church choir and children’s lullabies.

In 1992, her neighbor convinced her to enter a competition to sing the Nye Frontier Ford song. The winner got a trip to Nashville with Hobo Jim

or $1,000. She got the call she won and went to Nashville with her husband and a cassette tape demo.

“I was sitting there (at the Bluebird Cafe) looking at all the famous people on the wall and going, you know I just don’t want to do this,” she said. “I wouldn’t mind doing it if it fit in with my life. But you don’t say to a record label ‘I’ll be on you label if you fit it to my life.’”

So despite the offers to make a record with Hobo Jim’s help, Morgan decided she wanted to spend time with her 6-year-old daughter and husband.

She left Nashville and pursued her passion back home in Alaska.

She recorded her first true album with musicians from her high school band and did local shows for churches and community groups.

The Outside music industry came beckoning again when a Christian bookstore asked her to attend the Gospel Music Awards Week in Nashville.

“The same thing happened. I went down there, went to all these seminars, learned a bunch of stuff,” Morgan said, “but these guys were just as bad as the secular labels. They would have sucked the life out of you, change the way you look, be really in control about who you are and what you do. I was around 30 at the time, and already I was told I was too old. They asked me to say I was 24.”

She has been to Nashville three or four times since, always resisting the pressure to sign with a bigger label. But through her travels, she learned what it takes to be an independent artist.

She recorded two more records and is the master of what she called the “odd booking.” Before her first CD, she worked at Fred Meyer stores singing in the jewelry departments during Christmas. She has worked gubernatorial inauguration parties, veteran and benefit functions and corporate dinners.

One of her most successful gigs came from a random Internet search by a medical supply company. As a type 1 diabetic, Morgan was a slave to insulin shots for 17 years. Then she found a pager-size device that pumps insulin at regular intervals and avoids the peaks and crashes of shots.

She mentioned the device on her Web page, pump manufacturer Medtronic happened to come across it, and Morgan was hired to be their spokeswoman for five years.

“It’s just so funny that my disease brought my music all over the world,” Morgan said.

In the final stages of her contract with the company, she received another e-mail from someone named Billy who claimed to be a producer. Weary of the scams that offer musicians great success with high upfront costs, she almost deleted it as junk. However, she soon found out that Billy was Billy Smiley, the legendary Nashville producer.

She agreed to do the album so long as she kept complete control over the distribution. Seeing how the Internet is changing the music industry, she did not want to be beholden to investors, choosing instead to rely on her fan base created through her Web site, www.adelemorgan.com.

With total control, she released her fourth album through her own label, Blondetone Music. To say thanks to the Valley for all it’s support over the years, Morgan is having a CD release party Thursday.

Contact Todd L. Disher at todd.disher@frontiersman.com or 352-2252.